Iggy Pop Rides Through Classic Cinema

This video is a clever compilation of tracks from classic cinema set to Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger”. Pop was fresh out of rehab, in Paris, and being badgered by David Bowie to start making music when the tune was recorded. In many ways the song is classic Bowie but what always made it stand out was having Iggy Pop be the one to perform it. A song about being carried along by an awful drug addiction and finding faith that the world is still “made for you and me” has a much more impressive impact coming from Iggy. It’s also a refreshing angle on cinema, abandoning voyeur themes and affirming the classic sense that people “ride and ride” through a movie.

The song does make its winks and nods to film criticism as it goes. When Pop intones, “the stars made for us tonight” we cut to a couple making out on the beach in swimsuits. Clips are occasionally literal with lyrics, occasionally they match the rhythm of the song to a Hollywood dance routine, or matching the spirit of the scene to the line itself like the scene from Lawrence of Arabia where he is trying on his white garb for the first time appears with “Let’s take a ride and see what’s mine.”

L.B. Jeffries is the pseudonym of a law student from South Carolina. After majoring in English, L.B. wandered around the resort scene in California, taught a little creative writing in Vermont, and ended up dead broke on the lower east side of Manhattan. A year of working for the government convinced him that there are some things worse than death so he took the LSAT. He continues to maintain his sanity and artistic sensibilities by posting a weekly on the PopMatters blog, 'Moving Pixels', providing game reviews, and whatever else captures his fancy.